Nick has been gone 5 weeks today. Experiencing the military this way- going through a deployment and only having a vague idea of what danger they are actually in- really makes you appreciate everything military does for us everyday.

Last year's lantern floating- Image via photolulu.com

To celebrate our military ohana (family), Hawaii has a lantern-floating tradition. Early in the day on Memorial Day, many people get together to make lanterns, then in the evening they float them out into the ocean. This ceremony is to remember those who gave their lives in conflict, allows for reflection on the memories of loved ones and dedicates prayers for a peaceful and harmonious future (http://www.lanternfloatinghawaii.com).

While I won't be able to make it tonight, I definitely plan to go next year with Nick by my side. I think I would rather do it that way.

For anyone interested in seeing this beautiful ceremony who does not live on the island, there is an article and a link here to watch it live streaming tonight at 6:30pm Hawaiian time, 12:30am EST.

To all the military everywhere past and present, thank you for your service.

While I don’t want to be Debbie Downer and constantly talk about how SAD I am without my hubby and how my life is LACKING without my hubby…I think I need an easy pass just for this first month. Or at least right now.

I just sent an email off to Nick which, well, there’s a good chance it might get blocked from him reading it because the censors who read it before him may think I’m clinically insane and that it will worry him. But hey, worth a shot.

This morning was just a typical Friday. Aloha Friday here in Hawaii where everyone dresses down and you get to smile more not only knowing it’s Friday but it’s “Aloha Friday.” The true meaning hasn’t been described to me but I like to think of it as a mini holiday once a week.

YES.

Anyway, the day was normal. Good even. I even got hit on yesterday and today by a guy in the office next to me. I was quick to brush my hand through my hair quite a bit and flash the ring finger. I still don’t think he got it until today when I blatantly told him I’m here because my husband is stationed here. Anyway, it was still flattering was my point.

Traffic today was typical Friday traffic- much worse than any other day this week. But I saw a guy giving the shaka (See My Pieces of Hawaii section if you don’t know what that it- promise it’s not the finger)to someone briefly while inching along- it kind of made my day a little. Especially because only days before I witnessed two different people giving the finger to two different cars within five minutes of each other. (Okay I was one of the cars on the receiving end. I instantly tried to recall if I had done that to someone before and felt horrified and swore it would never happen again. Hey, it’s not my fault the lane was closed and I had to get in front of him. Oh Lord I do sound crazy today.) Meaning of this little rant? It made me happy to see someone giving a “happy” symbol instead of such a mean one. Wait..does that sound dirty..?

Alright, creepy doctor with guyliner! I'll shush!

My day went downhill when I remembered to swing by Long’s (aka CVS) on the way home to pick up a prescription I’d forgotten to pick up the day before. They didn’t have it. I would have to come back. After I left they called to say I had no refills left despite the refill website saying I had 2 refills left. If I’d known I didn’t have any refills left I would have made a dr’s appt much sooner. So I was left trying to struggle to make a dr’s appt sooner than 2 weeks and/or get a prescription written by people who had never even met me and didn’t have my medical records. Yeah, you guessed right. They don’t do that. Meh.

I was supposed to go over a friend’s house tonight and spend some girl time but just got myself way too stressed about all this and still hadn’t made any food to bring, didn’t know if I could handle going to the hectic grocery store at 4pm on a Friday, and KNEW traffic was NOT going to happen with me at this moment. I did not know if I could give lots of shakas.

Ahhh. Sanctuary.

After I had a relaxing cup of Vanilla Rooibos tea and a big ol’ slice of garlic beer bread, I walked the dog and checked the mail. Bam- overdue bill with the wrong address on it. It was a third notice of a bill of Nick’s I had been looking for and hadn’t received any of yet. Because they blatantly spelled our address wrong. That’s the fun thing about Hawaii words and people who are not Hawaiian- they (and we) often don’t get them, how they’re pronounced, or how they are spelled. Although our street name starts with a K. The envelope’s street name started with an A subsequently followed by 4 more vowels. Didn’t that trigger questions? Guess not. Anyway.

Then the website I went to immediately pay our overdue bill was not so user-friendly. Fortunately I was able to call and talk to someone and make sure we didn’t get any late charges due to them not having the right address anyway. But I also tried to get our interest rate dropped down- apparently it’s some law that if you go on deployment, all credit card rates and I guess certain loans drop down to SUPER low interest rates. Well, this company apparently needs orders. Which I’m pretty sure we don’t have- not ones saying when and where he is deployed since it’s essentially top secret. Sigh. Now his CO has to write an email from the boat for me to pass to the credit card company. And I subsequently have a headache and believe I will be indulging in pizza, champagne, and Twinkies for the rest of my evening. Vanilla Rooibos Tea be damned- you weren’t cutting it.

You know I think today was destined to not be great. It all actually started last night.

Well. It's true the show can be scary at times.

See what you should know about me is that I am a little, teeny, weeny, tiniest bit afraid of zombie movies. I won’t watch them alone. Occasionally they still pop into my head from time to time. I don’t know how that happens…I mean I’d be amazed if Ghost Whisperer triggered something….Well, now that I think of it….

Now, what you should know about Nick- he is a zombie expert. We’re talking he would be the hero of a zombie movie. I mean he’s read books. Done research. Really. (I promise he is a cool guy.)

The bad thing? He didn’t make an appearance in my dreams last night.

You'd have nightmares too if zombies in denim shirts attacked.

I was in this little town. And the zombie virus started taking people over. Not the sort of funny kind like Jenna Jameson in Zombie Strippers. The mean scary kind. They went crazy- tore at each other, their skin decayed a bit. Plus they looked really pasty. Me and some unnamed no face friend ran from them and hid away. After the rage part of the virus died down a bit (haha…died down) the zombies became more toned down but had hot tempers and still decayed looking, pasty white skin. Not my thing for sure. Plus not all of them made it through the rage part of the virus since it sort of made them kill other people.

So this friend and I try to blend in. But hey, I live in Hawaii. I have a tan. We didn’t blend well. The zombies were onto us. They attacked. They chased. I think they even went after my dog. I climbed some trees. I kept trying to get myself to wake up and I think I started to a few times but was so tired I immediately lapsed right back into the dream. The last thing I remember was a zombie pinning me to the ground and dripping its nasty, slobbery, virus-infected spit onto my face in an attempt to infect me.

Yeah, when you spend your night fighting off dead, rage-infected corpses how well do you think your day is going to go?? That’s what I thought.

Oh, look. A glass of bubbly. Good night!

Chimpunks Squeakquel & a glass of champagne= sure to be bubbly dreams tonight

I've begun randomly breaking into song and dance. Not well choreographed musical masterpieces like in Glee. More like random rap songs consisting of the words "puppy," "walk," and "WHAT" repeatedly and accompanying hawt dance moves.

Nick left on April 26th for his deployment. I couldn't talk about the date beforehand, and I can't talk about what he will be returning or where he is. But he is gone. I've actually been doing pretty well. Of course, he was gone for 2 weeks shortly before leaving so 2 weeks is tolerable. I'm not sure how I'll be when 2 months rolls around.

View of Waikiki from the catamaran

We had a really great couple of days together before Nick left. We did that sunset cruise in Waikiki...it wasn't all it was cracked up to be. The food was just okay (at best) and it was super awkward they sat us at a table with another couple.

Mini-moon before Nick left for deployment

I wouldn't have had a huge problem with that but the other couple like didn't even look at us and just kind of ignored us when we introduced ourselves. Awkward. The cruise itself was pretty though. And we got a good laugh when they got an old Japanese tourist up there to dance with the Tahitian hula dancers. :)

Fun with the new camera- Bella & Winston

The last day he was here we went to Lanikai with our friends Molly and Sam (Sam is also on the boat and Molly and I have been hanging out a lot). They brought their two dogs Winston and Bella and I got to break in my new camera.

Lanikai beach=Perfection.

Lanikai is definitely my favorite beach on the island. Calm, clear, gorgeous. It's on the other side of the island though- a 45 minute drive from where we live. Ko Olina will remain my favorite beach on this side of the island.

Anyway, Nick and I had a great last few days together before he left. It gets me excited about planning a honeymoon for when he gets back.

And fortunately, since he left I’ve been keeping super busy.

From underwater :)

The week Nick left I ended up picking up extra hours at work. With working fulltime, and driving an hour or more each day to and from work, I really didn’t have time to do much but eat, walk the dog, water the lawn, and sleep. Not much time to think.

Also fortunately, the other Navy Wives have been awesome. They really are such great friends to have…and we’re all on the same boat (pun intended).

Nick brought his new skimboard to the beach

I got to talk to Nick a few times since he left. He doesn't have a calling card to talk on the phone but he bought a netbook before he left and when they pulled into port only a week after leaving, he was around WIFI so we were able to Skype- way better than the phone anyway. We Skyped about 3 or 4 times before he left that port today...well, technically tomorrow/Monday (they are a day ahead of us). That was great. Nick even got Maggie to SIT via Skype. She looked confused when he said the command but she followed instructions.

Now that he has left that port, it will be a few weeks at least before I get to talk to him again.

I have a bunch of little goals set for while Nick is gone. One of the major ones (which I haven’t started yet) is that I really want to start writing a book. I also really want to learn to play guitar but I don’t currently have a guitar. And there are way too many other things I want for the house before a guitar comes into play.

The most important (and most accomplishable) goals involve the house.

We got grass seeds planted before Nick left since the 6 inch “plugs” of grass are taking so long to spread. We hoped this would help move things along a little. They’re all starting to shoot up, and it’s just so darn cute!

When I was little I loved to plant and grow things..it happened accidentally when I made an acorn-sawdust pie and it started growing. I thought it was the coolest thing! So I loved to grow catnip, Chia pets, aloe vera, and whatever else my mom would let me. When we moved to Charleston I was super excited to get a fern. I don’t know why. I just was. And I brought with me some peppermint plants from my grandma’s house.

Both died pretty quickly. It didn’t help that we were in apartments and they were out on the patio we never went out on. And I don’t think the severe humidity in the summer there helped either. The whole fern-killing experience kind of discouraged me.

I bought a fern a few weeks ago- which is still alive!- and named it Bob. He sits perfectly on top of our little Tiki man named Gizmo (doesn’t he look like a Gremlin?) They make a perfectly matched couple.

My garden!

Yesterday I bought herbs and veggies to plant in the garden area we have sectioned off. I also bought hibiscus plants (bushes?) to put in a really sunny corner of the yard where the grass is dying from too much sun.

Today I dug right in. Literally. I also made 3 trips to Home Depot this week and got cute patio furniture.

Patio furniture! Well, some of it.

After the yard is a bit more together, I’m going to work on the house. We got blinds last week (on the day of my birthday actually) and the house already looks…well, like a real house.

The hibiscus bloomed today. :)

I have some great ideas for splashing the place with some color and some decorating designs I can’t wait to work on. It’s kind of crazy that Nick will be coming home to a completely different looking place- but that’s why I’m excited. This week I’m going to go to Ross and utilize more giftcards by picking out some wall hangings and random decorations. So excited!

It’s still a bummer in some ways to live here though…I know what you’re thinking. “Don’t complain about living in Hawaii!” But when you’re living here- not vacationing here- it really is different.

I mean the cost of living is a given. It’s insane. The isolation is a big downside to the island. It was cool living in Charleston because if I needed to get back home, it was a10 hour drive and Maggie could come with me. Or the plane tickets, in case of emergency, weren’t insane.

Not here.

Having the dog (not that I’m complaining because she’s my best friend and my bed mate right now) limits a lot of things with the island because I can’t take her with me off the island. And plane tickets? Whew. So expensive to get back to the mainland.

View from Tiki's in Waikiki on Cinco de Mayo

But I think the biggest thing with it isn’t that it’s Hawaii- it’s that it’s living in Hawaii while being in the military. As long as we’re in the military, everything is temporary. I was looking at different things I could plant in that sunny corner of the yard and the garden store had lemon trees, lime trees, and navel orange trees….but with our time here I wouldn’t get to appreciate having something like that.

And it’s saddening to think of fixing this place up and putting money into it- knowing that someone else will be living here in 3 years or so.

Yummy pina colada

I definitely appreciate my time here. But I look forward to having a forever house one day, hopefully. A house that I can continue to buy things for it knowing they will be able to stay put. Or picking out patio furniture based on “Do I like it? Is it pretty?” and not “Will it break during our next move?”

Taken right before Nick left

But home is home. Despite what Luther Vandross says in his song- a house is not a home when there’s no one there to hold you tight.

My house is still a home. It’s up and coming but it’s still a home. Maggie and I will wait patiently- well, maybe not always patiently but mostly, hopefully- for the day Nick will come HOME.